How To Improve Your Social Media Reach in Just 15 Minutes a Day
Whether you are a small business, large business, entrepreneur, or non-profit, a data-driven social media strategy for your business is the only way to consistent, lasting results when it comes to engaging the right audience, one primed to purchase your product or enlisting your services. Social media platforms provide more insights and metrics than ever before, so which ones should you focus on? From 10+ years of experience, my answer to that question is reach. Reach is the foundation of the organic social media pyramid upon which engagement, followers, and conversions are built.
What is organic reach?
In technical terms, reach is the number of unique users on a platform who see your content. This metric is crucial because the more people are exposed to your content, the larger the pool of potential followers, commenters, and customers. Your content could be outstanding and something with the potential to go viral, but if only a handful of people see it, the world will never know.
There are two main social media reach types: organic and paid. Organic reach refers to reach that is obtained naturally through regular posts and comments. It can also include content shared by or commented on by your friends or followers. On the other hand, paid reach refers to the audience you reach through paid advertisements. Paid reach can include ads, sponsored posts, promoted content, and other ways of expanding your audience by paying a fee.
Why is organic reach important?
As mentioned before, reach is the foundation for every other metric we measure. Increasing your organic reach will boost your engagement, followers, and, in turn, conversions. The most basic ROI measurement for social media is to compare ad spend to the resulting sales and conversions from your social media efforts. (There are many, many other measurements for social media ROI, which I will cover in future blogs.)
Increasing organic reach is the single most impactful way to increase ROI from social media. This is especially true for businesses or non-profits with little to no budget for paid ads or companies who want to decrease reliance on social media ads and spend less of their marketing budget on ad dollars. Increasing organic reach can achieve both of those.
How do I improve my organic social media reach?
If you know me personally or have worked with me, you have probably heard the phrase, “The secret to connecting with your audience and increasing your reach is having conversations.” That’s really it! Increasing social media reach is something that literally anyone can do by posting content that encourages others to comment, have conversations, and comment on other people’s content.
Having conversations positively impacts your reach in 3 ways:
1. When you post content encouraging others to comment and discuss, each comment, reaction, and share increases your organic reach. Not only does it make your public content more visible to the friends and followers of people interacting with you, but it shows platform algorithms that your content is authentic, unique, and engaging. This prompts your content to rank higher in their algorithms and, therefore, reach more people.
2. Having conversations works much the same way but kicks it up a notch. When you reply to comments on your posts or ask follow-up questions, it prompts another interaction, which prioritizes your content even more.
3. Strategically commenting on other people’s content exposes your brand to their entire audience, increasing brand recognition. It also tells the AI for platforms like Facebook and Instagram that your brand is “real” and not just putting content out there to sell but rather have valuable insight to add. This also gives your organic reach a boost when it comes time to post your own content.
Spending 15 minutes daily commenting and engaging with content will immediately increase your reach. If you don’t have 15 minutes a day, do 5 or 15 minutes every other day. Every little bit helps; the trick is to be consistent.
This is a real example of a Facebook Page with only 423 followers. They put consistent energy into posting once or twice a week in large public Facebook groups and having conversations on relevant topics for a few minutes a day. In one month, they reached over 136,000 people without spending a single dollar on paid ads.
What are some rules I should follow?
When it comes to increasing your reach by engaging with your audience, it is vital to keep a few things in mind.
- Do not use AI-generated content. AI is an excellent tool for research and to get ideas, but not for creating content. Not only does it appear inauthentic, but it can also get flagged as AI by social media platforms and negatively impact your reach.
- Don’t engage with your competitor’s content. It’s just a bad look and can hurt your brand integrity.
- Keep it professional. Before commenting, ask yourself, “If a potential customer saw this, would it make them more or less likely to buy from me?”
Wrapping Up
Spending just 15 minutes a day (or as much time as you have) interacting on social media can exponentially increase your business’s social media reach, in turn boosting followers and conversions. Within a couple of weeks, you will begin to see results, and staying consistent will help you continue to increase your reach in the long term.
I go into much more detail about this engagement method for increasing organic reach and other ways to get a higher ROI from organic social media in my Social Media Reboot program. If you want to learn to build a high-performing social media strategy and create impactful, on-brand content that resonates with your audience and drives measurable success while saving time and money, the Social Media Reboot program may be right for you. To learn more, book a free consultation or learn the 5 Signs Your Social Media Needs a Reboot.